The Arizona sentinel., 1887-07-16

and learns to glean comfort from
 the perfectly satisfactory working of
 the great machine intrusted to his
 care. It is when there is something,
 be 1t ever so trifing, "out of kilter. :" that he is most visibly oppressed. Man and machine get into very close sym pathy, so to speak. He can tell by the very 'feer'of the locomotive if all is as it should be in that complex mechanism. He comes to regard it, in course of time, as living creature, as full of impulse as of power.
 On the freight locomotive there is more independent action and thought than there is on the passenger engine. In crossing the sagebrush wilds, where l the track extends in bee-line for miles ahead and is all free from obstruction, the freightengineer can ''slow down. and amuse himself by throwing coal at the jackrabbits along the line. A rail- road man said the other day that tons of good fuel were thus thrown away every year, and the ammunition used for the sport was either ineffective or the engineers were very poor marks men, for he had never known a single jackrabbit to bite the dNst as a result of all the throwing.
 Some engineers on the roads Ill this State amuse themselves by adding to the list of their bovine victims.
 Running into cattle," said one railroader recently, "gets to be sort of passion with engineers. They like the excitement of the chase. It is vastly better sport than the English fox hunting which they are importing to this country. You may laugh at the idea, but really after an englne- driver has run down cattle on half dozen occasions he begins to lose sight of the cruelty of the thing. If this were not so, why does he clap on all steam and rush into a drove of cat tie instead of slowing down and giv- ing them a chance for their livesP To a certain extent the fault is not his that stock is slaughtered On the track. but no one believes that there are not many cases in which such accidents could be avoided"
 Bremen as well as engineers enter more keenly into the excitement of railroading than do the train hands outside the cab. In many cases where it is the duty of the fireman to watch the track and give the whistle and bell signals his position is second only in responsibility to that of the driver.
 The occupants of the cab, by the very nature of their position, are more wrought upon by the narrowing dan gers of the rail, often having their nerves strung to the fullest tension by incidents which never come to the knowledge of the conductor or brake men who may be chatting jovially or holding sleepily in the rear.
 Beside the duties of the conductor of the present day and those of the conductor of twenty years ago could not be considered arduous. Travel has increased to such a wonderful extent since then, new stations have sprung up so thickly along the roads, and from a plain and simple system the business of ticket ing passengers from this point to that, with stop-over here and a connect ing line there, has become so complex as to require considerable schooling for its perfect performance, as well as no small command of everyday knowl- edge and a capacity for reading character, ability to rise to any situa- tion that may present itself and the exercise of good jud gment. As an illustration of the value of the latter quality, a story is told of a Western freight conductor, three cars of whose train were de- railed one day near Council Bluffs. The conductor took the red signal and went back to flag an express which he knew was following. He sent the en- gineer and fireman ahead to flag all trans coming from that direction and to get assistance, hurriedly calling out to stupid brakeman as he ran back: Pull the train ahead about hundred yards"
 The rear car had commenced to burn from the broken stove in the caboose and the conductor wanted to save the | valuable freight in the others. The brakeman got on the engine, but was too stupid to open the throttle, and so the whole train was burned, causing the loss of about $75, 900. When the conductor returned to the scene with some of the passengers from the ex- press, which he had stopped half a mile away, he looked at the burning cars, and, stepping up to the brake man, floored him with one blow. A quiet-looking passenger walked up to the conductor and said:
 "Why did you desert your trainP You could have sent that man back | with the flag and saved those cars yourself It seems to me that you don't know your business"
 Why, you old fool" replied the glaring at his audacious critic, do you suppose Twas going to | trust that man? kn3 W he was fool, | like you, and that's the reason I let | him monkey with the cars, while | went back to look after human lives"
 Do you know who am, conduc- tor?"
 No, and don't care"